TheUnifiedAstronomyThesaurus(UAT)A consensusthesaurusforastronomyNormanGray1, AlbertoAccomazzi2, ChristopherErdmann2, ChrisBiemesderfer3, JustinSoles4, KatieFrey2

1UniversityofGlasgow, UK, 2Harvard-SmithsonianCenterforAstrophysics, USA, 3AmericanAstronomicalSociety, USA, 4McGillUniversity, Canada

Overview

The UnifiedAstronomyThesaurus (UAT) will be anopen, interoperable andcommunity-supported thes-auruswhichunifiestheexistingdivergentandisolatedAstronomy&Astrophysicsthesauriintoasinglehigh-quality, freely-availableopenthesaurusformalizingas-tronomicalconceptsandtheirinter-relationships. TheUAT buildsupontheexistingIAU Thesaurus(see‘Ori-gins’). We expect that the UnifiedAstronomyThe-sauruswillbefurtherenhancedandupdatedthroughacollaborativeeffortinvolvingbroadcommunitypar-ticipation.

TheUAT'smaingoalsaretobe:

• open: anyoneinthecommunitycancontributebysuggestingadditions, refinementsandrevisions–thethesaurusitselfwillbereleasedunderaCC-BY-SACreativeCommonslicence;

• interoperable: thethesaurusisinastandardformat;

• community-supported: theUAT isalreadysupportedbymajorstakeholdersintheastronomicalcommu-nity (includingjournalpublishersandprofessionalsocietiesliketheIAU,AIP,IoP andAAS).

Thecurrentdraftreleaseisapolyhierarchywith2305terms, 15topconcepts, andwiththemajorityoftheterms2–4 levelsdown fromthe top. Thereare224‘related’linksinthethesaurus

Potential/expecteduses

Themaindriverbehind thecreationofasingle the-saurusisthewishtosupport semanticenrichmentofthe literature, butwe anticipate broader use of theUAT (amongstothervocabularies)indataandservicediscoveryapplications, andthattheUAT willunder-pinandinspireanewrangeofcross-silodata-sharingapplications.

<http://purl.org/astronomy/uat> a skos:ConceptScheme; dc:description """The Unified Astronomy Thesaurus (UAT) is an open, interoperable and community-supported thesaurus which unifies the existing A&A thesauri"""; dc:rightsHolder [ foaf:name "American Astronomical Society" ]; dc:created "2012-12-17".

:T105 skos:prefLabel "Astrophysical magnetism"@en; a skos:Concept; skos:narrower :T1011, :T1547, :T333, :T472.

:T1064 skos:prefLabel "Methods and techniques"@en;

UATthesaurus managem't

software

Integrator/gardenerAstronomers

Mining

Stewards

Outreach

Librarians

Astro/editor

TheUAT needsyou!

Astronomyandastrophysicsare fast-changingfields,withcontinualchurnintheir technicalvocabulary–forexample, neither‘darkenergy’nor‘exoplanets’ap-pear in the1992 IAU thesaurus. ADS must respectthisrollingchangeinthecourseofitsmissiontomakeavailablethediscipline’sliterature, andtheexistenceofanavailableandtrustedvocabularywillenableothersemantically-enhancedapplications.

Onthegroundsthatthebestsourceofnewvocabularyisthecommunityitself, weintendtoprovideawebin-terfacethatwillnotonlyallowtheUAT tobebrowsed,but also allow anyone to identify and suggest addi-tions, changesandimprovementstotermswithintheUAT.Thesesuggestionswillbefilteredthrough volun-teereditors(astronomersorsubjectmatterexperts)andentertheUAT withcredittothecontributorandeditor. Periodically, a librarianwill reviewandtunetheoverallstructurebeforere-releasingit, allowingthevolunteereditorstofocussolelyonreviewingthesug-gestionsmadebyusers.

Theinvolvementoftheastronomicalcommunity–withthedevelopmentworkledbyCfA/ADS –willhelptheUAT remain an up-to-date, accurate and trusted re-sourceforthecommunityasawhole.

Origins

TheUAT isequivalenttotheastronomysectionoftheall-physics thesauri commercially developed for theAmericanInstituteofPhysicsandtheInstituteofPhysicsand donated by them to theAAS.This is ultimatelybasedonthe1992IAU ThesaurusofShobbrookandShobbrook, withsubsequentadditionsfromHelenKnud-sen, MarleneCumminsandLizBryson, influencefromtheconsensuslistofjournalkeywords, and, inthelate-2000s, updatingworkbyRickHessmanundertheaus-picesoftheIVOA.

Getthethesaurus

YoucanfindmoreinformationabouttheUAT projectat http://astrothesaurus.org/.

Thethesaurusiscurrentlyin‘closedbeta’, whilewefinalisehowtheworkwillbemanagedanddistributed(thiswillincludeaSKOS thesaurus). ToexpressyourinterestincontributingtotheUAT orusingtheUAT fordevelopmentpurposes, jointhegooglegroup https:

//groups.google.com/d/forum/uat-users

Contacts: NormanGray norman@astro.gla.ac.uk, Al-bertoAccomazzi aaccomazzi@cfa.harvard.edu, Christo-pherErdmann cerdmann@cfa.harvard.edu, ChrisBiemes-derfer Chris.Biemesderfer@aas.org, JustinSoles justin.soles@mail.mcgill.ca andKatieFrey kfrey@cfa.harvard.edu.